amBX spins-out from the Philips Technology Incubator through the formation of amBX UK Limited and with the VC backing of Prime Technology Ventures (PTV), in the Netherlands.
Developed by a team within Philips Research in the UK, amBX is a technology for “sensory surround” experience. It enables content creators to add real world effects using light, colour, sound, rumble and even air flow, through licensed amBX devices, to the virtual worlds of computers, games, music, movies and TV entertainment.
amBX wants to license technology to create an ubiquitous standard in entertainment media and hardware. The new company will aim at the gaming sector and launch into new entertainment sectors such as music, films, PC-based entertainment and public venues. A new amBX development kit and partner program will be launched soon.
amBX Spins Out from Philips
Qualcomm Kills UMB, Backs LTE
As demand slows for cellphones, Qualcomm stops development of Ultra Mobile Broadband , a next-gen wireless technology and throws its resources into a rival, Long Term Evolution. This makes LTE the likely 4G winner in the mobile phone space. Next-gen networks such as LTE (sometimes referred to as “3.9G”) are based upon TCP/IP, the core protocol of the internet, with higher level services such as voice, video, and messaging, built on top of this. Europe should have 12 million LTE subscribers by 2013 (ABI Research).
Qualcomm wants growth beyond cell phones with its Snapdragon chips, aimed at consumer electronics such as pocket computers or low- power laptops. Qualcomm expects these first devices before mid-2009.
Sony’s Transfer Jet Gaining Momentum
Already more than fifteen companies have joined Sony’s consortium to establish interconnect specifications for the Transfer Jet short-range wireless technology for use in mobile phones, digital cameras, TVs, video players, PCs and other digital consumer appliances. Sony showed the short-range wireless technology at last year’s CES. The peak data transfer rate for the physical layer is 560Mbps for an effective throughput of 375Mbps.
HDMI Thrives While DVI Dives
Both the rapid rise of HDMI and slow decline of DVI continues in 2008, reports In-Stat. The primary driver of HDMI's success is the CE segment, with HDMI ports being found on 95% of the digital TVs shipped worldwide in 2008, the greatest volume for HDMI in any product.
While DVI and HDMI are related high-bandwidth, unidirectional, uncompressed digital interface standards, most of DVI shipments occur in PC and PC peripheral markets.
HDMI starts to take off in mobile PCs as an interface that can operate in PC or CE cluster. New smaller HDMI connectors will capture added attention from portable electronic devices, including camcorders, digital still cameras, and portable media players.
In-Stat finds that DVI-enabled product shipments will decline at an annual rate of 30% through 2012. Over the same period, HDMI- enabled product shipments will increase at an annual rate of 23%.
Go In-Stat
Full HD Video for Cell Phones by 2012
Ericsson’s concept is the cellphone will be "a mobile device” in 2012, equipped with a 12 to 20 megapixel camera and HD camcorder.
The terminal's display will have XGA resolution. The operating frequency of the application processor will reach 1GHz. And Ericsson expects the device to support 100Mbps or faster LTE.
Current HSPA technology maxes out at 7.2Mbps. An extended version of HSPA will emerge in late 2008 with max speed of 21Mbps.
W-CDMA, with speed of 384Kbps, emerged in about 2002 so the capacity of data transmission has grown 60X in only 6 years. The early shift to LTE is scheduled in some regions including Japan, whereas HSPA and HSPA evolution are likely to remain the mainstream for some time to come in other regions, he said.
Go HSPA, LTE and Beyond
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